Women in Movement (Routledge Revivals): Feminism and Social Action 0415821592, 9780415821599

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Routledge Revivals

Women in Movement

First published in 1992, this book is an historical introduction to a wide range of women’s movements from the late eighteenth-century to the date of its publication. It describes economic, social and political ideas which have inspired women to organize, not only in Europe and North America, but also in the Third World. Sheila Rowbotham outlines a long history of women’s challenges to the gender bias in political and economical concepts. She shows women laying claim to rights and citizenship, while contesting male definitions of their scope, and seeking to enlarge the meaning of economy through action around consumption and production, environmental protests and welfare projects.

Sheila Rowbotham is a Writer in Residence in the Eccles Centre for American Studies in the British Library and an Honorary fellow at the Universities of Manchester and Bristol. She is also a Fellow of the Royal Society. She helped to found the Women’s Liberation Movement in the early 1970s and has written many books on women’s and labour history. These include A Century of Women; Promise of a Dream: Remembering the Sixties and Edward Carpenter: A Life of Liberty and Love which was awarded the Lambda Literary Prize for Gay Biography in the US and short listed for the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. Her poems and two plays have also been published. Her most recent work, Dreamers of a New Day: Women who Invented the Twentieth Century, describes American and British women’s ideas and plans for changing daily life from the 1880s to the 1920s and was published in 2010.

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Women in Movement Feminism and Social Action

Sheila Rowbotham

Routledge Taylor & Francis Group

First published in 1992 by Routledge This edition first published in 2013 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 1992 Routledge, Chapman & Hall, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Publisher’s Note The publisher has gone to great lengths to ensure the quality of this reprint but points out that some imperfections in the original copies may be apparent. Disclaimer The publisher has made every effort to trace copyright holders and welcomes correspondence from those they have been unable to contact. A Library of Congress record exists under ISBN: 92012239

ISBN 13: 978-0-415-82159-9 (hbk) ISBN 13: 978-0-203-43614-1 (ebk)

WOMEN IN MOVEMENT FEMINISM AND SOCIAL ACTION

SHEILA ROWBOTHAM

ROUTLEDGE NEW YORK LONDON

First publishedin 1992 by Routledge an imprint of Routledge, Chapman& Hall, Inc. 29 West 35 Street New York, NY 10001 Publishedin Great Britain by Routledge 11 New Fetter Lane London EC4P 4EE © 1992 by Routledge, Chapman& Hall, Inc.

Printed in the United Statesof America on acid free paper. All rights reserved.No part of this book may be reprintedor reproducedor utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanicalor other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permissionin writing from the publishers.

Library of CongressCataloging in Publication Data Rowbotham,Sheila. Women in movement:feminism and social action / by Sheila Rowbotham. p. cm.-(Revolutionarythought/radicalmovements) Includes bibliographical referencesand index. ISBN 0-415-90651-2-ISBN0-415-90652-0(pbk.) 1. Feminism-History.2. Women radicals-History.3. Women. political activists-History. 4. Women social reformers-History. I. Title. II. Series. HQ1l54.R7691992 305.42-dc20 92-12239 CIP British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data also Available.

For Dorothy and Edward Thompson. Friends and teachersfor thirty years.

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CONTENTS

FOREWORD

Xl

SERIES EDITOR'S PREFACE

X111

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

XIX

INTRODUCTION

1.

GENERAL INTRODUCTION

3

WHAT DO WOMEN WANT?

5

2. WOMEN, POWER, AND POLITICS I

3.

16

RIGHTS, SOVEREIGNTY,AND EMANCIPATION

THE TOCSIN OF REASON: WOMEN IN

27

THE FRENCH REVOLUTION

4. A NEW MORAL WORLD: EARLY

36

RADICALS,COOPERATORS,AND SOCIALISTS

5. THE ABOLITION OF SLAVERY AND WOMEN'S EMANCIPATION

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WOMEN IN MOVEMENT

6. CLASS AND COMMUNITY: WOMEN

54

AND THE CHARTIST MOVEMENT

7. WOMEN IN REVOLUTION:

59

NINETEENTH-CENTURY FRANCE

8. EQUALITY AND INDIVIDUALISM:

67

HARRIET TAYLOR AND JOHN STUART MILL II

CHANGING PERSONALLIFE

9. SENSUOUS SPIRITS: VICTORIA

77

WOODHULL AND TENNESSEE CLAFLIN

10. TRANSFORMING DOMESTIC LIFE:

87

COOPERATIVES AND THE STATE

11. MORAL UPLIFT, SOCIAL PURITY,

95

AND TEMPERANCE III

POLITICAL MOVEMENTSAND SOCIAL ACTION

12. NATIONALIST MOVEMENTS AND

103

WOMEN'S PLACE

13. SOCIAL REFORM: PROTECTION BY

114

THE STATE

14. WELFARE AND SOCIAL ACTION

122

15. SOCIALISM, WOMEN, AND THE NEW

129

LIFE

16. MARXISTS AND THE WOMAN

140

QUESTION

17. ANARCHISM AND REBEL WOMEN viii

151

CONTENTS

IV POLITICAL POWER: REFORMAND REVOLUTION

18. THE SUFFRAGE: PATRIOTS AND

165

INTERNATIONALISTS

19. WOMEN AND REVOLUTION IN

178

RUSSIA

20. INDIAN WOMEN AND SELF-RULE

193

21. THE LONG MARCH OF CHINESE

207

WOMEN V IDENTITY AND DIFFERENCE

22. SEXUAL POLITICS

221

23. BATTLES AROUND BOUNDARIES:

239

CONFLICTING STRATEGIES AFTER WORLD WAR I VI

RECENTWOMEN'SMOVEMENTSAND SOCIAL PROTEST

24. "BORNINGS" AND BEGINNINGS:

257

ORIGINS OF WOMEN'S LIBERATION IN MANY COUNTRIES

25. PERSONAL POLITICS: CHANGING

271

DEFINITIONS THROUGH ACTION

26. KNOTS: THEORETICAL DEBATES

284

27. THE PROTESTS WITHOUT A NAME:

293

WOMEN IN COLLECTIVE ACTION

309

CONCLUSION NOTES

317

FURTHER READING

345

INDEX

361

ix

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FOREWORD

Womenin Movementis one of severalstudiesgrowing from the Women's Programmeof the World Institute for DevelopmentEconomics Research(WIDER), which is part of the United Nations University. Recognizingthat to add genderonto existing economic theory is to missimportantissuesraisedby feminist critiquesof economicdevelopment, WIDER has encouragedresearchthat explores the scope of existingdefinitionsof economics.Consequentlythe WIDER Women's Programmehas drawn on sociology, anthropology,philosophy, cultural studies, history, and political science,as well as economics. Womenin Movementprovidesstudentswith an historicalaccountof conceptsthat haveplayeda crucial role in economictheory: "progress," "development," "modernization," "tradition," "equality," "entitlements," "rights," and "needs" are situatedin social contexts. Sheila Rowbothamshowshow debatesaboutthe aims of economicandsocial developmenthave a long history. In many different countrieswomen havesoughtto enlargedefinitions of "economy"to include, for example, domestic labor, the reorganizationof family life, consumption, community, and daily life. They have done this not only through debate,but by taking action around production and consumption. This introductory text will enablestudentsto follow a wide range of economic, social, and political movements all over the world,

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through which women have sought accessto resourcesand more democraticcontrol over their lives. The author, one of the researchadvisersin WIDER's Women's Programme,combineshistorical knowledge with awarenessof significant issuesin contemporarysocial and economic policy and has been active in the women'smovementsince the late 1960s. Lal Jayawardena Director of WIDER

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SERIES EDITOR'S PREFACE

This book, like its companionsin the Revolutionary Thought/Radical Movementsseries, challengescontemporarysociety and civilization. Perhapsthe heart of this challengeis a deeply felt anguish and outrageover the sheermagnitudeof humansuffering-alongwith the terrible frustration of knowing that much of this suffering could be avoided. Radicals refuseto blame homelessnessand starvation, the rapeof womenand abuseof children, the theft oflabor and land, hope humannature. and self-respecton divine Providenceor unchangeable Rather,they believethat muchof it comesfrom injustice, exploitation, violence, and organizedcruelty that can be eradicated.If we drastically alter our social arrangementsin the direction of equality, justice, and human fulfillment, the brutal realities of the presentcan give way to vastly increasedmaterialsecurity,socialharmony,andself-realization. Philanthropistsand political reformersshareradicals' concernfor human suffering. But unlike reformers and philanthropists,radicals andrevolutionariesaddresswhole systemsof injustice. In thesesystems, particular groups are humiliated, denied rights, and subjectto unjust control. The few becomerich while the many suffer from poverty or economic insecurity. The select get privileges while millions learn submissionor humiliation. We are conditionedto false needsfor endless consumptionwhile natureis poisoned.The powersthat be profit from thesesystems,"commonsense"enshrinesthemas necessary,and

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ideological mystification obscurestheir origin and natureby blaming the victims. Responsesto people'spain, if they are to be truly and lastingly effective, must be aimed at the system:at capitalism, sexism, racism,imperialism,homophobia,the bureaucraticstate,andthe domination of nature. Governmentsand economies,families and culture, science and individual psychology-allare shapedby thesesystemsof domination and exclusion. That is why the radical ideal goes beyond piecemeal improvementsto a Utopian vision, and tries to realize that vision in everydaystrugglesfor a fair distribution of power, human dignity, and a livable environment.Revolutionarieshavearguedthat a modern economy can be democratically controlled and oriented to human needsrather than profit, can do without vast differencesof wealth and power, and can preserverather than destroythe earth. Radicalsclaim that in a true "democracy"ordinarymenandwomenwould help shape the basicconditionsthat affect their lives: not just by an occasionaltrip to the ballot box, but by activeinvolvementin decisionsaboutpolitical and economiclife. How will thesesweepingchangestake place?Revolutionarieshave offered many answers-fromlarge political partiesto angry uprisings, from decentralizedgroups basedin consciousness-raising to international organizations.In any case, however, the conceptionof radicalism that informs the series stipulates that authentic revolutionary changerequiresthe self-actionof sizablegroupsof people,not the selfpromotion of a self-proclaimedrevolutionary "elite." The only way to preventthe betrayalof the revolution by a privileged bureaucracyis to baseradicalpolitics on free discussion,mutualrespect,andcollective empowerment.from the beginning. This is one of the clearestand most painful lessonsfrom the history of communism. Of coursemuch of this soundsgood on paper. Yet it may be-as many haveclaimed-thatradical visions are really unrealisticfantasies. However, if we abandonthesevisions we also abandonhumanlife to its current misery, with little to hope for but token reforms. Radicals reject this essentiallycynical "realism," opting for a continuing faith in the human capacity for a fundamentallydifferent and profoundly liberating form of life.

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In fact, people have always dreamedof a better world. Yet it is only sincethe late eighteenthcenturythat organizedgroupsdeveloped a systematictheoretical critique of social life, and tried to embody that critique in masspolitical movementsdesignedto overthrow the existing order of economicownershipand political control. American revolutionariesclaimed that "All men are endowedwith certain inalienablerights." The Frenchrevolution demanded"liberty, equality, fraternity." Since then Marxist, socialist, feminist, national liberation, civil rights, gay and lesbianliberation, and ecology movementshave been born. Each movementutilized some of the accomplishmentsof its predecessors,criticized the past for its limitations, and broke new ground. Revolutionary Thought/RadicalMovementswill focus on the theory and practice, successesand failures, of thesemovements. While the series' authors are part of the radical tradition, we are painfully aware that this tradition has committedgrave errors and at times failed completely. The communismof the Easternbloc, while maintaining certain valuablesocial welfare programs,combinedeconomic inefficiency, brutal tyranny, and ecologicaldevastation.Many of us who took to the streetsin the 1960sjoinedarrogancewith idealism andself-indulgencewith utopianhopes.Much of contemporaryradical or socialist feminism fails to reach beyond a circle of the already converted. Theseand otherfailures of radicalismare certainlyapparenttoday. Daily headlinestrumpet the collapseof the Easternbloc, the victory of the United Statesin the Cold War, the eternalsuperiorityof capitalism and free markets, and the transformationof yesterday'sradicals into today'syuppies. Governmentsof countriesthat had called themselves"socialist" or "communist"(howevermuchthey weredistorting the meaning of these terms) trip over each other rushing west for foreign corporateinvestmentand economicadvice. But there are also successes,ways in which radicals have changed social life for the better. Though theseachievementshave beenpartial reformsratherthansweepingrevolutions,manyof the basicfreedoms, rights, and material advantagesof modern life were fought for by people called radicals, dangerousrevolutionaries,or anti-American:

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• restrictionson the exploitationof workers, from the eight-hourday to the right to unionize; • resistanceto cultural imperialism and racial discrimination; • a host of governmentprograms, from unemploymentinsuranceto social security, from the Environmental Protection Agency to fair housing laws; • restrictionson opportunisticand destructiveAmerican foreign policy in Vietnam, EI Salvador, Nicaragua,and other nations.

Although radicalshavenot beenalonein seekingthesegoals, they have often led the fight. Perhapsmore important, they have offered a theoretical analysis that shows the connectionsamong problems that may appearto be separate.They havearguedthat the sexist treatment of women and ecological devastationmay have the sameroot. They have shown the links betweenthe private control of wealth and an expansionistforeign policy. They have analyzedthe family, the factory, the army, and the governmentas parts of the samesystem of domination. Along with both the concrete successesand the global vision, radicalshave-sadly-toooften reproducedthe ideasand relationships they soughtto destroy.Marxists demandedan end to unjust societyyet formed authoritarianorganizationswhere dissentwas repressed. Radical feminists proclaimed"sisterhoodis powerful," but often ignored black women or poor women. At times ecologists,in trying to save nature, have been disrespectfulof human beings. Someof the worst failures camenot from being radical, but from not being radical enough: not inclusive enough,not honestenough, not willing to examinehow radical political programsand group behavior reproducedan oppressive,unjust society. Awarenessof thesefailures remindsus that revolutionarythoughtcannotlimit itself to critique of the larger society, but also requiresself-criticism. Although this process can degenerateinto petty sectarianhostilities, it also shows that authenticradicalismis not a deadgravenimage, but a living questto learn from the past and changethe future. In the attempt to create solidarity and community amongthe oppressed,for instance,radicals haverecentlyspentmucheffort trying to addressand appreciatefundamental differences in social experience-betweenblack and white

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workers, menandwomen, temporarilyable-bodiedand disabled,gay/ lesbian and straight. In this effort, radicals have wrestled with the paradoxthat personsmay simultaneouslybe victims of one systemof domination and agentsof anotherone. The booksin this seriesare part of this radical questfor revolutionary changeand continuedself-examination.In an era of the suddenfall of totalitariancommunismandthe frightening rise in the federaldeficit, of the possibility of a peacedividend and the specterof the death of nature-thesediscussionsof revolutionarythoughtand radical movements are neededmore than ever before. Roger S. Gottlieb

*Thanksfor editorial suggestionsto Bland Addison, Mario Moussa,Miriam Greenspan,Tom Shannon,andJohn Trimbur.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This book originated in coursesat Paris VIII, Kent University, and City Polytechnic. Someof the material was also usedin seminarsand classesat York University, Ontario, the Islington Sixth Form Centre, Kingsway Collegeof FurtherEducation,NorthernCollege, The Institute of ContemporaryArts, and the Open University. I am grateful to WIDER UNU Women'sProgrammefor financial assistancewhile Womenin Movementwas being researchedand written and for the stimulation and opportunity to learn about social and economic issues facing women in Third World countries through WIDER seminars. For material, references,information, discussion,and ideasabout women internationally I am indebtedto Nahla Abdo, Hugh and Pat Armstrong, Vinay Bahl, Himani Bannerji, RosalynFraadBaxandall, Eileen Boris, Claire Crocker, CharleneGannage,Linda Gordon, Hermione Harris, Judith Adler Hellman, Jane S. Jacquette, Temma Kaplan, Delia Jarrett-Macauley,Kumari Jayawardena,RenanaJhabvala, Govind Kelkar, Deniz Kandiyoti, RadhaKumar, SaraLeiserson, Meg Luxton, FatimaMernissi, ParthaMitter, SwastiMitter, Valentine Moghadam,Maxine Molyneux, Kumudhini Rosa,JenniferSchirmer, Marja-Liisa Swantz, Aili Mari Tripp, StephanieUrdang, Eleni Varikas, Virginia Vargas, Amrit Wilson, and Nira Yuval-Davis. Any errors in interpretationare my own.

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For advice basedon their extensiveteachingexperiencethanksto Alison Kirton, Jean McCrindle, and Janet Ree. I am grateful to the series editor Roger S. Gottlieb and to my student readers Shelley Mclennanfrom Islington Sixth Form Centreandmy classat Richmond College. For greatpatienceas I groanedand moanedon the telephone becausethe writing was much harderthan I had thought-particular thanks to Sean Hutton, Delia Jarrett-Macauley,Partha and Swasti Mitter, Lynne Segal, and Hilary Wainwright. And big thanks to The Typing Pool and to Margaret Hanbury for their labor and kindness.

xx

INTRODUCTION THEMES FOR DISCUSSION

* * *

* *

What is feminism? The meaningsand usesof the term "gender." Do you think people could be feminists before the word was invented? Why have women neededdemocracy? The advantagesand disadvantages oflinking women'semancipation with the transformationof the whole society.

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GENERAL INTRODUCTION

Womenin Movementis an historical introductionto the ideas,organizations, and activities that haveinfluenceda wide rangeof emancipatory movementsamong women from the late eighteenthcentury to the present.It tracesthe origins of feminism in relation to political thought and action in many countries.It also describesother economic,social, and political movementsin which women have participated,not only in Europe and North America, but also in the Third World. Themesthat run through the historical accountsinclude equality, women'sdifference, the personaland the political individualism, collectivity, the scopeof rights, and the definition of needs.

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WOMEN IN MOVEMENT

Relevant to women's studies, gender studies, women's history and politics courses,it could also be usedas backgroundin sociology, politics, history, and economicdevelopment. Each section gives studentsa starting point from which they can take off in severaldirections, either historically or by studying texts theoretically,dependingon their own interests.Themesfor discussion are drawn out beforeeachsection. Theseare not intendedas exclusive statementsof the questionsraised, but as guidelinesfor studentsnew to the historical material. The short general bibliographiessuggestfirst steps and indicate texts that are comprehensiblewithout much backgroundknowledge. These could be followed up by reading other works quoted in the footnotesafter eachchapter,which in turn would provide more references. Women in Movementcan be read in the customarymannerfrom beginning to end, but it is designedto be read in sections,so it could cover severalcourses.Conceivablyit could evenbe readbackwardby those who prefer to approachthe past from the present!

4

1 WHAT DO WOMEN WANT?

Women receiveless than one-tenthof the world income, but do twothirds of the world's work. Although earninglessthanmen, they work longer hours-2to 5 hours more in developedcountries,5 to 6 hours more in Latin America and the Caribbean,and as much as 12 to 13 hours more in Africa and Asia. When houseworkand child care are taken into account, women on averagehave a 60 to 70 hour week. Factssuchas thesesuggesta commonsenseanswerto the question what do womenwant? They also suggestwhy, throughoutthe world today, thereare women'smovementsand organizationsthat arestruggling for better conditions. However, humanbeingswants and needs

5

WOMEN IN MOVEMENT

are never that simple and women are as capable as men of having contradictoryand different desires.Consequentlythereare manykinds of women'smovements,someaiming to conserve,ratherthan change women'sposition. Moreover, within the movementsfor changethere are many conflicting emphasesand perspectives. From the late 1960s there has been a resurgenceof feminism in many countries,making this the movementthat most peopleassociate with the effort to changewomen'slives. But even if we narrow our questionto what is feminism, the replieswill vary considerably."Feminism" itselfis a word that hasbeengiven a rangeof shifting meanings, even in the modern women's movement. There is nothing unique in this of course; every set of political conceptspossessescontrary interpretations,and as soon as theseare applied to reality they acquire yet more nuances.By looking at ideas historically, it is possible to reveal implicit assumptionsthat accumulatearound a political term, but then becomeoverlaid and forgotten in every day usage. When women's groups formed in the late 1960's, feminism was sometimesregardedwith suspicion: the term "women's liberation" was used. It was thought that feminism was too limited becauseit had been only about women's civil and political rights. One early anthology, for example, had the title From Feminism to Liberation.! In contrast,when AmandaSebestyenediteda book in 1988on the history of the recentmovementin Britain, shecalledit From Women'sLiberation to Feminism, saying that, Liberation was oncesomethingfor which a thousanddifferent schoolsof thoughtcontended.Women'sliberationsaw itself as oneof thoseschools.2

The use of the term "feminism" served to highlight women's specific oppressionin relation to men, preventing this from being submerged,amid all the other unequalrelationshipsexistingin society. Thus feminism is sometimesconfined to women's strugglesagainst oppressivegender relationships.In practice, however, women's actions, both now andin the past,often havebeenagainstinterconnecting relations of inequality and have involved many aspectsof resistance around daily life and culture that are not simply about gender.

6

WHAT DO WOMEN WANT?

Somefeminists havestretchedthe meaningof the word and given it a wide span.Judith Astellara, writing on the modernSpanishmovement, presentedthis definition of feminism in 1984: Feminismis a proposalfor social transformationas well as a movement that strives to end the oppressionof women. In this doubleaspect,feminism has always existedas part of the historical societiesin which it has developed:it has been influenced by the specific social, economic and political traits of its society. As a movement,feminism hasa long history of rebellion, more or less organisedbut always expressingoppositionto the social institutions that madepossiblethe inferiority of women. This oppositionhas not beenisolatedfrom other forms of social struggleand this relationshiphas influencedboth the ideology and the organisationof the movement.3

Not all women would acceptthis view. Sometimesfeminism is seen as quite separatefrom any kind of politics in which men are involved. Also it is often regardedas a movementfor limited reforms not for social transformation.It has also been characterizedas being restrictedto a particulargroup, for example,as expressingthe interests of middle class and white women in Westerncapitalism. It is not then self-evidentwhat people mean when they speakof "feminism" and within feminist politics there are several differing political perspectives.Very broadly, "radical feminists" emphasizethe primacy of women'ssubordinationto men, which they regardas the key to changing society as a whole. "Liberal feminists" argue that women should have equal opportunitieswithin society to jobs and educationand opposediscriminationagainstwomen. "Socialist feminists" think womenareoppressednot only by men, but by otherforms of subordination, such as class and race inequality. None of these divisions is absoluteand within eachcategoryit would be possibleto find rather different emphases.Moreover, theseare by no meansthe only lines of demarcation.Not only have many disputesoccurredin the modern movementabout what women'sproblems are and how they should be changed,but the idea of "women" as a unified group has beenbroughtinto questionin a seriesof challengesto perspectives that ignored and denied the experienceof groups such as lesbians,

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black women, working class women, aboriginal women, Jewish women, older women, disabledwomen, and many others. Conflict over who has the power to speakfor women as a group and disagreementabout the meaningof feminism are not peculiar to the contemporarymovement.So an historical awarenesscan enableus to take a wider view of present day disputes. Feminism is not an abstractcategorybut a word that human beings have used over time in various ways. At the height of the women'ssuffragemovementin Britain in 1913, a sharp,young feminist journalist called RebeccaWest observed, I myself have never been able to find out precisely what feminism is, I only know that peoplecall me a feminist wheneverI expresssentiments that differentiate me from a doormat or a prostitute.4

The word "feminist" was inventedby a French socialist, Charles Fourier, in the early nineteenthcentury. He imagineda "new woman" who would both transform and be herself transformedby a society basedon associationand mutuality, rather than on competition and profits. His views influencedmany womenand combinedself-emancipationand socialemancipation.Changingoneselfwas part of changing the world. "Feminist" appearedfor the first time in English to describe women campaigningfor the vote in the 1890s. By this time organizations had developedin many placesthat soughtto extendliberal ideas of individual rights to women. Thesesoughta reform within existing societies.However, the demandfor the suffragealso involved a more fundamentalchallengeto the denial of autonomyto womenas citizens. Feminists argued that if liberalism meant every individual standing alone endowedwith equal rights that were universally comparable, women could not be included within the male franchise. Democracy involved women'sfranchise. In nineteenth-centuryradical and revolutionary movementsthe assertionnot only of individual equalrights but of popularsovereignty was made. If the people are seen to have the right to shapesociety then, women argued, this must include them, as half of the people.

8

WHAT DO WOMEN WANT?

Anotherclaim to citizenshipwasmadein termsof women'sservice as mothersand workers to societyas a whole. The citizen-motherhad a right to a democraticpolitical voice and a social right to resources becauseher reproductivecapacityandher labor contributedto material existence. Some women also believed that women had a moral duty to improve society by gaining power through the franchise. Women's mission was to bring their specific values into the public arena of politics and makea bettersociety. Definitions of this womanlyalternative varied: banningalcohol, redesigninghousing, challengingmilitarism, and improving sanitation. Redemptionhad a conservativeside; white womenor rich women havedeterminedthe moral sphereas upholdingAnglo-Saxon"civilization." Women's mission also had its socialist wing; women were to bring about social well-being and welfare for the working class. The family could be the basis for a better community and the household the model for a benign, homely state. The meaningsof feminism extendedbeyondthe campaignfor the vote. In the early twentieth century "feminism" was being usedin the United StatesandEuropeto describea particularstrandin the women's movementthat stressedthe uniquenessand differenceof womenrather thanseekingequality. Indeeddifferencewas sometimestakento imply women'ssuperiority to men. Thus to remakethe world in women's image would be to improve society. However, therewas no unanimity on what thesealternativewomanly values actually were. Womanlinesswas at once the conserving of the personalcare and responsibility of hearth and home and the adventurousprocessof a discovery of a potential new womanhood. Mari Jo Buhle, in her history of Women and American Socialism 1870-1920, quotesa journalist in the early 1900s: We have grown accustomedin theseyearsto somethingor other known as the Woman Movement. That has an old sound-itis old. Therefore no need to cry it down. But Feminism!s

Feminismin this contextwas usedto describethe cultural assertion of the "new woman." Personalself-realizationwas a vital element. It

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WOMEN IN MOVEMENT

could be linked to the project of social emancipationor it could focus on the unfolding of personality as an end in itself. Drawing on the philosophersof will, Nietzsche and Bergson, this interpretation of feminism maintainedthat the true subject of enquiry was the human being rather than the attempt to changeexternal social institutions. Opposingreasonand progress,this strandof feminism broke with the liberal values and assumptionsthat had predominatedin the nineteenth-century middle-class "Woman Movement." Instead of the Christian ethic of moral reform that had mingled with the idea of universal rights,the new women were inclined to defy social conventions and were ready to risk unrespectability. However,it was not differenceor bohemianismthat upsetArabella Kenealy in 1920. She arguedin Feminismand Sex-Extinction(an early "postfeminist" tract) that Feminism, the extremist-andof late years the predominantcult of the Woman'sMovement, is Masculinism.6

She believedfeminism denied women'suniquenessby demanding equality with men. Feminists were endangeringthe reproductionof healthy children and holding back the evolution of society. One of her main targets was the South African writer Olive Schreinerwhosebook, Womanand Labour, in 1911, hadstressedthe significanceof women'srole in productionas a sourceof powerin society. Olive Schreinerarguedit wasnot enoughto wavethe "poor little 'women'srights' flag on the edgeof the platform.,,7Womenwerenot simply victims of the wrongs done by men. To alter women'slives a change wider thansimply an equalpolitical statuswith menwas necessary.She openedup an approachto women'smaterial and social existenceas a whole that was to influenceparticularly socialistwomenwho felt equal of many rights did not tacklethe actualeconomicandsocialdependence working classand lower middle-classwomen. They did not, however, have a commonstrategy.Was improved pay and working conditions the answer or more welfare benefits? Should women have special protectionat work becauseof biological differencesand their work in the home?

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WHAT DO WOMEN WANT?

Feminismcameto be an all inclusive term by the 1920sand 1930s, being usedto describenot only political campaignsfor the vote but also economicand social rights ranging from equal pay to birth control. FromaroundtheWorld War I someyoungwomen,convincedthatfeminism alone was not enough, called themselves"socialist feminists." Other socialist women opposedfeminism, which they saw as exclusively expressingthe interestsof middle-classprofessionalwomen. Before "feminism" came into common usagein English phrases such as "Womanism," "the Women's Movement," or "the Woman Question" had been current. Marxists continued to refer to "The WomanQuestion,"presentingan approachthat viewedwomen'sposition historically and within specific social relations. They looked at women'slives as a whole, rather than seeingemancipationsimply as gainingtheright to vote. However,inequalitybetweenmenandwomen in societywasregardedas a problemthat would endwith classequality. The emergenceof the modern women'sliberation movementin the late 1960s put the stressonce more or women struggling to free themselvesin an autonomousmovement,restoringself-emancipation as a factor. Many ideas have appearedin the modern movements among women that can be found in the past, for example, women's claim to control their own bodies, or the protestagainstinequality at home, becausewomen tend to do more housework and child-care even if they go out to work. It is possibleto find similar disputesas well; should women demandequality with men or seekreforms from within a different situation? How should biological differences be approached?Are they best minimized or celebratedas a basis for specific needs?These frequently involve a strategic dilemma about whetherto enter a male-definedsphereof politics and ideas or to try and reshapethe public terrain that hasbeenestablishedin men'simage. Although looking at women'smovementshistorically can enable us to situate contemporarypreoccupations,it is always important to be sensitiveto the contextsin which conceptsand opinions have been expressed,ratherthan simply interpretingthem arrogantlyin terms of what we might believe. There have been women's movements,for example,that did not think they were feminist, but in whoseideasand work modernfeminist historianshavedetectedfeminist aspects.There

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is a thin dividing line betweenrecognizingelementsin pastmovements that were outside the terms of referenceof contemporarydefinitions and rather condescendinglydeciding other peoplewere not capableof making up their own minds and that we know better. It would be pedantic to deny that awarenessof injustice had to await the arrival of the term feminist. On the other hand, there is a danger in approachingthe past as colonizers, bearing the superior wisdom of our presentday women'sstudiesdepartments,as we arbitrarily label all and sundry as feminist. For this reasonI have been wary of extending the term, and mainly kept to words people used themselves,statingexplicitly when definitions havebeencreatedposthumously by historians. An historical perspectiveof the differing forms of women'sstruggle for emancipationis just as vital in understandingwomen'swants as finding a wider tradition of feminist action in the past. Indeed, other forms of inequality besidesgender,such as raceand class, can be of as much consequenceas being born a woman. Thus thereare reasonsfor womenmaking allianceswith men who areaffectedby socialinequalityaswell. Our needsarenot determinedby our genderalone.Moreover,feminismhasfocusedon interestsbetween men and womenthat are dissimilar, but therehavebeen,and continue to be, movementsthat stresswhat particulargroupsof menandwomen havein common,for instance,tradeunionsor tenantsstruggles.Women haveplayeda part in suchmovementsand they havehad an important impact upon their lives. Consequentlyit is necessaryto balancethe awarenessof women'ssubordinationin relations with men with the mutuality and sharedintereststhat have also beenelementsof movementsfor emancipationin which womenparticipated. The conceptof genderwas developedby feminists in the 1970sas a meansof recognizingthat women do not relate to men in the same way in every culture and that the position of women in society has varied over time. The idea of genderthus posits a social rather than a biological situationof womenand of men. Sometimesthe phrase"sexgenderrelations" is used; this reminds us that there is a link between biological differencesbetweenmen and womenand the social assumptions about masculinity and femininity.

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WHAT DO WOMEN WANT?

Genderhas come to be applied in severalways; it has described women's relationship to men in particular societies as well as the experiencesof women and men in movementsfor political or social emancipation.Thus nationalist or antiimperialist strugglesor trades unionism can be given a genderdimension,becausethey haveimplicitly held imagesof how men and women could be and attemptedto recastnew ways of being men and women. Genderissuesare to be observedin apparentlyobjectiveeconomicpolicies, for thesecan have consequences that affect women's lives by making accessto natural and social resourcesmore difficult. By looking at gender in connectionwith other grievancesand concernsthat haveled women to protestit is possibleto understanda wider range of women'smovementsand action in the presentand in the past. For instance,Louise Tilly describeswomen expressingtheir needsthroughcrowd action, long beforeany organizedmovementfor women'srights. womenwere participantsin group politics whetheror not they hadformal political rights. The forms of collectiveactionin which womenhavetaken part have beenshapedby interestand organisationalbasesrooted in the economicand social structuresin which they lived. 8

Assertionof demandsby the unprivilegedpredatedpolitical representation.This direct action againstoppressionhas involved the poor of both sexes.However, by asking how thesehave been affected by the relations of genderin specific societies, we can observeboth the wants women have sharedwith men and the differing emphasesthat are sometimesapparentin their actions. Under slavery women and men suffered a common bondage. Lucille Mathurin traced a long history of rebellion among Caribbean women slaves throughout the seventeenthand eighteenthcenturies. The Caribbean"rebel woman,,9participatedand evenled resistancein which they fought and died for freedomjust as did men. However, she also notes oppositionsto the daily life of slavery that are specific to women, for example,delayingweaningas a meansof refusingwork to the slaveowner. Awarenessof genderprovidesa way oflooking at

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the forms rebellion has taken. This avoids the mistake of imposing a feminist aim of altering genderrelations upon all women'sstruggles in an ahistorical manner. In distinguishingamongdiffering kinds of oppressiverelationship historically it becomesapparentthat women do not always feel that their genderis the main sourceof their trouble in life, and that they have not necessarilyregardedother women as allies. In the modernmovement,the word "identity" has beenusedas a meansof ensuringthat particular groupsof women'sneedsand views are not overruled by others in positions of greaterprivilege. Identity has beena meansof staking out a distinct territory, openingup space for many diverseexperiences,insteadof presentinga limited interpretation of what womenmight want, basedon a narrowelite. However, the problem with the conceptof identity is that it tends to become rigid, fixing individuals artificially into a single aspectof their lived experience.It does not convey the dynamic processof an individual becomingaware, within a network of interconnectingrelationships. Becomingconsciousof oneselfand one'splace in the world occursin relation to others; it is an exceedinglycomplex processnever determined completely by external factors. One of the most fascinating puzzles of history is the attempt to understandhow people came to identify with groups and causesin particular times and places. For example, at the first women'srights conventionheld at SenecaFalls, New York in 1848, CharlotteWoodward spoke not in terms of abstractrights, but of a consciousnessof herself that had developedfrom her life as a homeworker. She was only nineteenbut shewent to the heartof a complexproblem. Does a consciousness exist beforeit hasexpressionphilosophically,politically, organizationally? We women work secretly in the seclusionof our bed chambersbecause all society was built on the theory that men, not women, earnedmoney and that men alone supportedthe family .... But I do not believe that there was any community in which the souls of somewomen were not beating their wings in rebellion. In my own obscureself I can say that every fibre of my being rebelledalthoughsilently, all the hours that I sat and sewedgloves for a miserablepittancewhich as it was earnedwould

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WHAT DO WOMEN WANT?

neverbe mine. I wantedto work, but I wantedto collect my wages.That was my form of rebellion againstthe life into which I was born.10

CharlotteWoodward'srebellionagainstthelife into which shewas born, partly asa woman,partly becauseofhersocialposition, happened to coincide with an event that is sometimestaken to be the beginning of an organizedmovementfor women'srights. But womenhad been sewingglovesfor hundredsof yearsbefore1848. Whatwerethey thinking? CharlotteWoodwardbelievedthat her position as a womanin the economywas the crucial reasonfor her low wages. But in the same periodmanywomenin the British Chartistmovementcampaigningfor the malefranchisebelievedthey wereoppressed,not becausethey were women, but becausethey werepoor. They interpretedsimilar circumstancesin a different political languageof class. The relation betweencircumstancesand conceptsis neversimple. An historical awarenessof how conceptsare usedand understood revealstheir complexity. Categoriesare helpful in sorting out strands of thought and differentiating forms of action and organization in social and political movements.But it is only by looking at how these are shapedby people in history that we are able to see how things move. The processesof experienceand the shifts in the meaningsof ideasare dynamic; theoreticaldefinitions are static. The real challenge is holding these differing ways of seeing and understandinghuman social action together. Finding a word to illuminate what people might want can be a powerful meansof summingup what is otherwisea confusingwelter of demandsand aspirations.Still it is importantto be consciousof how the terms we use have arisen and recognize that they need to be constantlyoverhauledand redefined.To return to what peoplethemselvessayand do is a necessarycorrectiveto becomingenclosedwithin our own immediateassumptions.It may well be that our assessment of the experienceof otherswill always be approximate-truthbeing a slippery customer. This need not leave us though with an absolute relativity; the aim is to arrive at the closestpossibleapproximation.

15

2 WOMEN, POWER, AND POLITICS.

The idea that womenand politics shouldnot mix is extremelyancient. Consequentlypolitical organizationamong women, especially poor and uneducatedwomen, has frequently beenregardedas a trespasson the public domainof power. Commentingon presentday mobilization of poor Third World women claiming accessto resources,Maxine Molyneux notes that they are confronting, "entrenchedideas ... with a provenancethat goes back in political theory to Aristotle and beyond.'" The argumentthat womenpossessdistinct naturesbecauseof their biological difference from men has frequently accompaniedviews of

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WOMEN, POWER, AND POLITICS

women'sseparatesphere.This has reinforceddivisions in hierarchical ~nd powerful from political societies,which excludedall but the richpowerful power, and continuedto form a barrier, evenwhendemocraticmovements have sought to extend the baseof participation. Opinion and facts are not, however, quite the same. In practice royal and aristocratic women have exerted political power, leading armies into battle, devising laws, and engagingin statecraft.And in situations of extreme oppressionand conflict, in wars and during foreign occupationor colonization, even humble women have been sweptinto public prominence,leaving a record in many cultures. For examplethe dreamof a youngVietnamesepeasantwoman,who, more than a thousandyearsago, imagineda different way of beinga woman, has survived the centuries.In 248, Trieu Thi Trinh, told her brother, My wish is to ride the tempest,tame the waves,kill the sharks.I want to drive the enemyaway to saveour people. I will not resign myselfto the usual lot of women who bow their headsand becomeconcubines.2

True to her word, she led an uprising with her brother against the Chineseoverlords, which drove them from the land. When they returnedwith reinforcements,shetook her own life ratherthansubmit to serfdom. The public realm of politics is not, of course, the only kind of power that exists. In peasantsocieties, for example, women have possessed economicpower becausethey have contributedan essential part to the productiveprocess. Similarly,many rituals and beliefs have grown up aroundwomen as bearersof children. Women'sreproductive capacityhas beeninvestedwith magical and mysteriousforms of power, though the actualcircumstancesof childbirth were hazardous. Poetry and songs by women survive in many differing cultures from early times with themesfrequently about personalrelationsbetween men and women, preservinga memory of sensualas well as spiritual yearnings. Language, music, and art are means of giving expressionto one's feelings and thoughts; thus creativity can be seen as a kind of power. The interaction betweenproduction and the reproductionof life

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WOMEN IN MOVEMENT

in society, the role of culture, and the type of religious faith are all relevant for an understandingof women's position and gender relations. How society as well as politics are organizedhave important consequences on women's lives, one element being how public and personalaspectsoflife are actually divided. So, in examininghow and why movementsemergeand develop among women, knowledgeof both the structuresand relationshipswithin a given society is vital. Ideas of what is male and what is female have varied greatly in different cultures and periods. Similarly conceptsof nature, personal life, the individual society, and politics are not fixed categoriesbut are formedby peoplein responseto diversecircumstances.The boundaries betweenpersonallife and what is seenas the public spherehave been shifted and reconstitutedthus as peoplehave disputedand recastprevailing values. Long beforeany political movementfor women'srights cameinto being, women challengeddefinitions of their naturesimposedby men through secularand religious culture. This involved contestingwhat constitutedculture and could lead to questionsabout how the boundaries determining personal and public affairs were set. In 1404, for instance,Christine de Pisan, a French writer, produceda book called The City of Womenin which sheconfrontedmen'spower to decidethe scopeand contentoflearning and scholarship.The City of Womenwas to be a "cloister of defence.,,3Imaginatively she sought to create a citadel fortified by argument whereby women of all stations might withstandmale critics. She took over the separatespacethat existedin the cloister as an image and gave it a new m2) Auxiliary movementsspannot only work and home, production and reproduction,they can questionhow decisionsare madeaboutthe use of resources,as happenedin the British mining community in 1984-1985. Environmentaldevastationhas also causedaction. In 1980, in the Peruvianmining town of Cerro de Pasco,when a child died, women mobilized against the mining company that was polluting the main street with toxic and radioactivewaste. Womenin India have takenpart in movementsto safeguardtrees, which for forest peopleare vital aspectsoflivelihood. In Kenya in 1983 the MombambaWomen'sSelf-Help Group got involved in an energy programthat set about redesigningstoves,learningagroforestrytechniques, and growing firewood. Similarly the Associationof Women's Clubs in Zimbabwein the mid-1980sembarkedon tree planting after a drought. In Senegalthe Federationdes AssociationsFeminine du Senegalorganizesgroups on deforestationand afforestation. Access to water, its transportation,storage, and purification are

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all aspectsof everyday managementthat take effort and skill in the Third World. Thus womenhavebeeninvolved in dam projectsand in hand pump installation. Women'sgroupsinternationallyand women working in aid organizationshave brought these social needs and women's skills on to planning agendas.Theseself-help survival endeavorsthus raise important questionsabout democracyand demonstrate the possibility of technologicaland economicalternatives. Devastatingenvironmentaland economicforces havebeenbringing new threats.For example,womenin Bhopal, India organizedafter the disasterat Union Carbidebroughtillnessanddeathto their families and the argumentarosewith the companyhow to compensateloss of humanlife and livelihood. Womenin the United Stateshavealso mobilized againstenvironmental hazards. Nell Granthamfrom Tennesseebecamefrightened about water near a chemical dump, not only for herself, but for her children and grandchildren."What kind oflife are they gonnahave?,,24 In Harlem, New York, Helene Brathwaite noticed white powder flaking off the ceilings in her child's school in 1978. She and other parentsagitatedto develop thorough and safe methodsof doing the repairs. They not only protestedbut presentedalternativesolutions. AmericanIndian womenin SouthDakotarevealeda rangeof environmentalhazardsresultingin birth defectson the Pine Ridge reservation in 1979. Poor Mexican and black "Mothers of Los Angeles" blocked constructionof a toxic wasteincineratorin 1989. Thesenetworks for survival and resistanceare vital not only for the lives of women whose action brings them into politics but also for any project of social transformationseriousabout fundamentally changingwomen'slives. They are crucial indicators of economicand social problemsthat require urgent solutions. At presentthey remain externalto the main theoreticaldebatesin women'sstudieswriting. They raise fundamentalquestionsthat cannot be comprehendedwithin existing feminist paradigms.For social protest action frequently relates also to men and is about issuesthat affect men. Nor are the participantsall women. Some strandsof the women'smovementin both the North and

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Southin the last two decadeshavebeenconcernedaboutsocial change in general,but if "feminism" is takento be aboutgenderrelationsalone, then there are distinctions that make the feminist label inappropriate. For example, Y ayori Matsui describesa young Korean worker Chun Tae-il who was distressedby the conditions of girls aged 12 to 15 who wereassistantsin the "PeaceMarket," a garmentfactory where they were brutally abusedand likely to get tuberculosis.The right to unionize was denied and he was sacked. When five hundred of the women demonstratedin 1970 with placardssaying "We are not machines" the police stoppedthem. Chun Tae-il set himselfalight crying "Protect young women workers.,,25 As he died in the hospital he said to his mother "Don't waste my death. Pleasebe mother of the workers.,,26 Lee So-Sun'sown life had beenhard. Shehad worked as a pedlar, a domestic servant, and begged for her children. Her son's action broughther into a new public sphere,organizing the ChonggyeGarmentLabour Union in the PeaceMarket, openinga schoolfor workers to learn about their rights with help from students. Her daughterhasbeendrawninto what becamea wider movement for human rights not only labor issues. During 1986 a number of studentsburnedthemselvesin protestsfor democracy.Their mothers formed an "Association of Families of the Democratic Movement" and Lee So-Sunwas electedits presidentwhile she was in prison. Thereare, moreover,many examplesof womenenteringa public political spherefor humanitarianreform as "mothers." Actions based on this genderedrelationshiphavebeenboth apartfrom and connected with feminism. The involvementof mothersthroughtheir children in public defiance of tyranny has been an important influence on politics in Latin America. In Argentinawomenwhosechildren had "disappeared"and were not known to be alive or deadbeganwalking in small groupsin the Plaza de Mayo in 1977. The "Madres" action inspired others to braveGaltieri's dictatorship.Tragically, it has beencompelledto continue. Personalgrief combinedwith a senseamong women, regardless

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of their class, that the responsibilitiesof mothering, so often invoked by rulers to remindwomenof their duties,involved the right to protest against inhuman acts of dominion. The demand for human rights becamean ethical movementfor democracythat challengedthe public power of the state. Motherhoodhas beeninvoked both for war and for peacein the past. The modernwomen'smovementitself has beenboth committed to armedstruggle(in supportof Vietnamor SouthAfrica, for example, and to someextent Palestineor Ireland). It has also been against war and colonization. Feministscampedoutsidethe U.S. military baseat GreenhamCommonfrom the early 1980sin Britain; Somesayingthat men are the ones who make wars; others simply declaring that they are women against nuclear weapons. In Israel in the early 1980s a women'sgroup formed againstthe Lebanonwar. From the mid-1980s the "Women in Black" have protestedagainstIsrael'streatmentof the Palestinians.Thesevigils have spreadnot only in Israel but to many other countries. "Women in Black" combines groups who act as "mothers" and as "women againstwar." Modern feminists differ (as in the past) about whetherwomenare eitherinherentlyor socially lessmilitaristic than men. Womendemand peacesometimesas "mothers," sometimesas political "human beings." For an ambivalencestill exists about whether to value one's difference or challengemale colonizationof universal concepts. Not surprisingly, human rights and peace movementscontain similarly both assertionsof women's difference from men socially or culturally and a claim of universal rights as part of a common humanity. Movementssuchas the "Madres" in Latin Americaexpressa social power basedon the intensity of the personalbond betweenchild and mother. For this they are preparedto risk deathand torture, shifting valuesoflove and nurtureinto public oppositionto the state.A movement of black mothers that crystallized during the 1980s in South African townships outside Capetownpossesseda comparablevision of community. However, a persistentproblemhas provedto be how to make the

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move from being a social force, into the political arena,in the context of the transition to democracy.Mothers can be at once revered and marginalized. The difficult processof making such a transition has beenevident in the mobilization of women in nationalist and socialist movements as well. The questionsposedby recentnationalliberation strugglesin the Third World, by attempts to establishsocialism amid wars and trade embargoesin poor countriessuch as Cuba or Mozambiqueor Nicaragua,have beendebatedin innumerablefeminist meetings,articles, and books.27 There has been disagreementabout the extent to which women'sspecific relationswith men shouldbe the emphasisor whetherwomen'sconcernsare boundup with the collectiveenterprise of transition to a different society. But there has also been an awarenesscoming from the women's movementinternationallythat the formulationsof both Westernfeminism and the old Marxist "Woman Question" have to be reworked. Recognitionof the needto acknowledgewomen'sautonomyand gender relations has combined with the realization that these cannot be abstractedfrom materialcircumstancesand social relationsas a whole. As Sonia Kruks, RaynaRapp, and Marilyn Young observein Promissory Notes, a collection of studiesabout the transition to socialism, macro-planningissues (such as production goals for light over heavy industry) and even micro issues (such as providing running water or designingpublic housing),areall vital to womenandhavegenderimplica• 28 nons.

In the contextof SouthAfrica's future, Jo Beall, Shireen Harrison, and Alison Todes29 point out that simply involving womenin production neglectsthe socialwageand redistributionof economicassetsthat are significant factors in how women's domestic work is done. So power to determinehow social and economicpolicy is conceivedand priorities determinedalong with participationin a democraticprocess committed to a more egalitarian society is part of "the woman question.,,30 A Nicaraguancampesinain campaigningfor an autonomousorga-

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nization of women during the mid-1980s told an FSLN commander he was "up the spout on women,,31-a defiance of male authority that would have been inconceivableunder the former regime led by Somosa.The Sandinistaswere overwhelmed,but they struggled in adverseconditions to break with the authoritarianlegacy of socialism that was set by the pattern of the Soviet Union. Commenting on women'sstrugglewithin the Nicaraguanrevolution, HermioneHarris observesthat "women'sparticipation... madewomenagentsof their own emancipation,not just objects of reform.,,32 Varied forms of women'saction for emancipationcarry differing aspects of women's experience and various understandingsabout change.Thoseproblemswithout namesthat Betty Friedanuncovered amongAmericanwomenin the 1960swere only part of a much wider predicamentin which the diversecircumstancesof women'slives lead to a new awarenessof self. It is importantthat theseare all sourcesfor critical thinking about what kind of society promisesa better life for thosevast populationsof womenwho are still excludedfrom political power and from that partial, and often socially prejudiced, terrain called 'theory.' Then the protestswhich at presenthave no namewill comeinto their own and the tocsin of reasonchangeits tune. Olympe de Gouges'"moment" has not been squandered, eventhoughemancipation is yet to be realized.

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CONCLUSION

In the mid-1980sMaxine Molyneux put forward a "dual challenge,,,1 in examiningand understandingthe contemporarycollective action of women. She said it was necessaryto take accountof both feminism and the widespreadand growing involvement of women in the realm of politics on a global scale, as participantsin popular movementstogether with men, as actors with specific women's demands,and in their own autonomousmovements.2

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All theseforms of political involvementhavea long and entangled history. Understandingthe debatesand demandswhich haveappeared in the pastprovidesa meansof placingwomen'sclaim for emancipation in a wider context than simply the story of feminism- or even feminisms. The choicesand priorities of politics have genderimplications which affect women'sresponses.Women both now and in the past have been involved in struggles which have not only been about women'sneedsas women. Broaderdefinitions of women'sengagement in politics arenotjust historically illuminating they have practical implications for the kind of future we can envisage.In a period of materialand theoreticalcrisis the questionof what kind of emancipatoryvision has becomea matter of urgency. From a few small groups meeting in the United Statesfrom the mid-1960s,internationallywomen'smovementshave grown to redefine the initial assumptionsand aims in many parts of the globe. Their influence has rangedfrom the Indian countrysideto the townshipsof South Africa. However, in the sameperiod the lives of poor women in particularhave beenbadly affectedby economicand social changes that they havelacked the power to determine.Increasingpoverty and violencehavebeenborneby womenwith the leastaccessto resources. Of coursenot all womenare poor; indeed,demandsfor equalopportunities in the richer countries have enableda minority of women to enter better jobs. Nonetheless,although women are not the only people who are poor, women constitutea significant elementamong the have nots. So an incongruity exists; awarenessof the disparity in gender relations and a recognition that social inequality as a whole has a genderedaspecthave come into being as feminist ideas have spread and developed,but the lives of the massof womenhavenot improved. Practicalchangehas beendifficult not only becauseof opposition from powerful interests,but becauseof disagreementand uncertainty about how to createa society that would improve women'slives. Feminism, always, as we have seen a movement with several political meanings,has retainedits ambiguitiesin our time. Is its aim for a few women to rise, for an elect to retire to a citadel of purity, or

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for a wider social transformation?Is it to be a movementofliberated women or a movementfor the liberation of all women? Women'sparticipationwith menin combinedpopularmovements has involved historically a struggle on two fronts. Not only have womensacrificedtheir lives to the dreamof a betterfuture-thatgood societywithout povertyand fear, whereno one would be subordinate, but they have had to confront the attitudes of some men in radical movements.A male vision of greaterdemocracyhasfrequently denied the specific needsof women and not acknowledgedwomen as equals within the public political realm. Socialist and national liberation movementsare now in considerabledisarray.This is partly becausethey havemet with ruthlessopposition from conservativeforces, concernedto safeguardprivilege amidst economic and social upheaval, but also becausethe political forms, created in the name of socialism, have been so clearly oppressive and undemocraticthat their claim to be bearersof freedom has been muddied. Although the social and economic structuresof state-led socialistsocietiesdid providemoresecurityfor womenthancapitalism, they also werebureaucratic,corrupt, and clumsyin respondingto both material and cultural needs. In developing countries concern about economicscarcity has frequently overwhelmedthe struggle to create more equal relationships. The outcomeof all egalitarianand democraticdreamsis uncertain for we are in the midst of a profound reassessment of many notions that provided the framework for assumptionsabout how human beings could act to improve their lives and societies. Certainly there is abundanthistorical evidenceto show that reason, progress,control, and modernization cannot be taken as somehow unqualified good things, but as conceptsthat havebroughtharm as well as benefits.The enlightenmentheritagethus has turned sour, leading many peopleto reject it in its entirety, including the optimistic vision that by applying human reason and planning to institutions it would be possible to increasehumanwell-being. Indeedthe view that the kindest courseis to do nothing at all but to live our own personallives as quietly and unpretentiouslyas we can has gained an influential following. From the point of view of those who are poor or subordinated,however,

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such quietism is hardly satisfactory.Past efforts might have not succeeded;this does not remove the problemsthat previous movements for human emancipationsought to address.Nor does it necessarily imply that the endeavorto bring thought and action to the project of creating a better society should be abandoned. Feminismitself has not evadedthe turbulence,for it too is partly a daughterof the enlightenment,albeit an unruly and argumentative offspring, carrying, like other radical strands,its ambivalentheritage. However, the proposalof rational social changewas, from the start, problematizedby the loadedmeaningsgiven to biological difference. Womenthus were neverin the samerelationshipas men to the project of the enlightenmentbecausebiological difference was posited by many radical menas sufficient causeto excludewomenfrom what was in reality alwaysa male-definednotion of humanity.The femalegender was the point wherethe radical notion of universalrights was inclined to start making exceptions.Women were presentedas part of nature, to be controlled, the symbols of continuity in a world of flux. A protracted argument of feminism from its origins then has beenfor the right to both enter and redefinethe public spaceof male democraticpolitics. Historically the emphasishas varied dependingon circumstanceand there is a long history of women disagreeingabout whetherit was more importantto get includedor to put specific needs forward. Broadly the attemptto combineboth the strugglefor access and the effort of transformationhasbeenmoreevidentwhenan impact on societyas a whole hasappearedto be feasible.In reactionaryperiods, in responseto the failure of efforts to changeall aspectsof relationships, withdrawal has appearedto be a more realistic approach. Implicit within the debatesamong contemporaryfeminists have been fundamentaltheoretical questionsabout the relationship of the material to the spiritual or cultural and the interconnectionbetween human beings and the natural world. A challengeis emergingto the assumptionthat control over natureis the goal, along with a rejection of the complacencythat progressis carried inherently within history. A persistentconfusion however is whether these are essentially women'svisions or whetherfeminist theoreticalquestioningis part of a broaderredefinition of humansocial emancipation.

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CONCLUSION

Somefeminist theories,now and in the past, havemaintainedthat women have not only been excluded from politics historically, but that womenare necessarilyapartfrom politics becausethis is an inherently male sphere.Although this opensup the possibility of imagining how the purposeof politics might changeby taking on women'sneeds and desires,it suppresses the importantcreativerecordof what women have done and thought and it presentsa misleading impression of women'sactualcircumstances.For beingnot seenwithin a culture and not beingtherearenot at all the same-though this hasbeena persistent sourceof confusion, for to be denied and scornedis humiliating and weakening. If we look a little closer, it is possible,however, to find that it is not only women who are marginalizedthrough the perceptionsand views of more powerful groups. Also as we observefeminism over time, we will note that feminism has always interactedwith other political ideas.Moreover,it hasbeenworkedout historically by particular social groups, embodyingmeaningsfrom partial vantagepoints and containingits own exclusions. So although"women" have beeninvoked politically by feminists and others, it is important to be clear about who is being labeledand for what purposes.Real women are a complicatedand argumentative lot. Insteadof presenting"women" as an abstractcategory,it is better to see"women" as people, who within particular historical situations are continually making choices about how they see and align themselves. So by placing feminism alongsideother forms of women'ssocial protest and viewing both within an historical context, it becomes possibleto show how various groupsof women have tried to change their circumstancesand how they have fared. This can indicate what kind of blocks are likely to occur again and help to reveal how a new political paradigmmight emerge.History doesnot repeatitself; it can, nonetheless,provide somehints and clues. Thoughbooks are valuableforms of communication,it would be a mistake to assumethat the only individuals endowedwith ideas about changehave beenthosewith accessto publishers.The women of the French revolution who complainedabout prices and Chartist

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women resisting unemploymentand the upheavalcausedby the factory system had views about the economyand the state. Resistance againstslavery, the conditions of workers, tenants'movements,and communalinsurrectionsof the poor havecontainedconvictionsabout political and social rights and wrongs as have the rebellionsof peasant women. The reconstructionof a vision of society among poor women historically and in the presentday requiresinterpretingnot only words but actions. The rangeof protesthas involved many aspectsof social existenceand includednotionsofjustice that are not basedon concepts of abstractrights but on rights establishedby custom. Very often a pastis invoked by popularmovements.Thus an idealizedGoldenAge and a mythological version of tradition can be a powerful elementin popular mobilization. These can be incorporatedeither into movements for democracyor those that seek to impose hierarchical and authoritarianregimes. Human desires are frequently contradictory and consciousness shifts and moves elusively. Moreover, when people act on their assumptionsand beliefs, there are always many variables affecting the consequences that can be far from what they intended. So it is never an easymatterto determinehow and why peopletake the coursesthey choose. This is one of the great quests in history, as relevant and problematicfor women as for men. How individuals position themselvesin relation to their situation in societyis anotherbig debatethat has had an importantimpact upon argumentsthat women should have the power to decide how they should live. One way of thinking placesindividuals within the structures of society; gender, race, and class, for instance.Othersfocus on the individual, telling peoplehow to becomemore assertive,healthy, less emotionally dependent,in harmony with nature, how to enjoy sex more, or whatever. In the first the individual is in danger of vanishing within theoretical structuresof domination and becomes quite powerless,whereasthe other is often overly optimistic about what can be done without taking account of the real barriers that constrain liberating oneselfwhile everyoneelse is in a mess. The missing link is a perspectivethat can include the needsof individuals,

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while placing thesewithin a network of relationshipsformed within particular societies. Although it is important to recognizethat neither self-emancipation nor social transformationare as straightforwardas their earlier advocatessometimesimagined for women, or for men, and that the obstaclesto be encounteredinclude both inner and outer fears and resistances,thereare compelling reasonsfor reworking proposalsthat can show how human beings can make a better society. Thus those aspectsof the enlightenmentthat presenteda critique of inequality, injustice, andhumansubordination,alongwith the view of the individual as responsiblefor changeand improvementin societyareas vital as ever. Accompanyingthe gleaningof insights from the enlightenment, there are the sourcesof lived experience. Movementsof women, now and in the past, provide more than criticism, they can be a basisfor valuableknowledgeabout needsand well-being that have beentheoreticallydisregarded.They also enable us to think about society and the economyin new ways and discover a great deal about the processesof politics and culture. Not only feminism, but environmentaland ecological protests, the efforts to reorganizeconsumption,daily life and work, and the standon human rights and peaceall contain a wealth of understandingabout how the aspirationsof women can tackle the powerful economicand political institutions that control vast resources.Within thesepractical struggles, there are many theoreticalquestionsabout how to resist; what should be the proper relation betweenthe grassrootsand leaders,the implications of the meansusedfor the end that is desired,the connection betweenthe personaland the political, natureand culture, or the material and the spiritual. An understandingof such movementsnow and in the pastas well as of feminism can thus help us envisagehow we might conceivea betterway oflife, by enablingquestionsto crystallizethat do not take what exists for granted: Is the aim to be equality or difference?To assertor deny the body? To map the interior world or lay claim to a public terrain? To reshapesociety or restructurepolitical power? Where do opposing values come from and how do we imagine this new world? Will the emphasisbe placedon freedom or security?

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Do we conceiveof all women becoming manly and men womanly? Or do we assumea new woman and a new man? Or do we simply want to find a new humanbeing?Would suchbeingsbe recognizable to us? If so, what aspectsof our presentselvesmight we trace in the future we would wish to make? Imagination can enlighten the body politic, reasonand strategic actioncanreconstructits contours,but our understandingandmemory of past efforts at reform and transformationcan also help shape a future; one that is mindful of recurring tensionsand sensitiveto the complexramificationsof humandesire.The fabric of experience,long claimed by conservatives,can also servethe project of emancipation.

316

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CHAPTER 1 WHAT DO WOMEN WANT?

1. Edith HoshinoAltbach, From Feminismto Liberation. Schenkman,Cambridge,Massachusetts,1971. 2. Amanda Sebestyen,Introduction. In ed. Amanda Sebestyen,'68, '78, '88, From

Women'sLiberation to Feminism.Prism Press,London, 1988, p. x (U.S. distribution, Avery). 3. Judith Astellara, Feminism and Democratic Transition in Spain, CanadianWoman Studies,les cahiersde la femme, Vol. 16, No. 1. York University, Ontario, p. 71.

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4. RebeccaWest, In ed. Jane Marcus, The Young Rebecca, Writings of Rebecca West,

1911-1917.Macmillan in associationwith Virago, London, 1982, p. 119. 5. Mari Jo Buhle, Women and American Socialism 1870-1920. University of Illinois Press,Urbana, 1983, p. 290. 6. Arabella Kenealy, Feminismand SexExtinction. T. Fisher Unwin, London, 1920, p. v. 7. Olive Schreiner, Womanand Labour. T. Fisher Unwin, London, 1911, p. 125. 8. Louise A. Tilly, Women and Collective Action in Europe. In ed. Dorothy G. McGuigan, The Role of Women in Conflict and Peace. The University of Michigan, Centerfor Continuing Educationof Women, Ann Arbor, Michigan, 1977, p. 41. 9. Lucille Mathurin, The Rebel Womanin the British WestIndies during Slavery. AfricanCaribbeanPublications,no date. (Distributed in Britain by Third World Publications, 151, Stratford Road, Birmingham BII 1RD.) Seealso Hilary McD Beckles, Natural Rebels,A Social History of EnslavedBlack Women in Barbados. Zed Books, London, 1989. 10. Charlotte Woodward, quoted in Gerda Lerner, The Woman in American History. Addison Wesley, Menlo Park, California, 1971, p. 84.

CHAPTER 2 WOMEN, POWER, AND POLITICS 1. Maxine Molyneux, Prologueto Gail Omvedt, Womenin Popular Movements:India and Thailandduring the DecadeofWomen.United NationsResearchInstitutefor Social Development(UNRISD), Geneva,Report No. 86.9, 1986, p. x. 2. Trieu Thi Trinh, quoted in Sheila Rowbotham, Women, Resistanceand Revolution. Allen Lane, London, 1972, p. 20. 3. Christine de Pisan, quotedinJoanKelly, Early Feminist Theory and the Querelle des Femmes.In ed. JoanKelly, Women,History and Theory. University of Chicago Press,Chicago, 1984, p. 71. 4. Fatima Mernissi, Beyondthe Veil, Male-FemaleDynamicsin Muslim Society.Al Saqi Books, London, 1985 (first edition Schenkman,Cambridge,Massachusetts, 1975), p. 71, and Fatima Mernissi, Women in Muslim History: Traditional Perspectives and New Strategies.In ed. S. Jay Kleinberg, Retrieving Women'sHistory. Berg/ UNESCO ComparativeStudies, 1987. 5. Ursula King, Womenand Spirituality, VoicesofProtestand Promise.Macmillan Education, London, 1989, p. 103. 6. Quotedin Sheila Rowbotham, Women, Resistanceand Revolution, p. 17.

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NOTES

7. CatherineMacauley, quotedin SylvanaTomaselli, The EnlightenmentDebateon Women. History Workshop,a journal of socialist and feminist historians, Issue 20, Autumn 1985, p. 107. 8. Mary Wollstonecraft, quoted in Jean Grimshaw, Mary Wollstonecraft and the Tensionsin FeministPhilosophy.In ed. SeanSayersand PeterOsborne.Socialism,

Feminismand Philosophy,A Radical PhilosophyReader.Routledge,London, 1990, p. 19. 9. Ibid. 10. William Godwin, Memoirs of the Author of the Rights of Woman (1st ed. 1798) in ed. RichardHolmes, Mary WollstonecraftandWilliam Godwin, Penguin,London, 1987, p. 231.

CHAPTER 3 THE TOCSIN OF REASON: WOMEN IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION

1. Olympede Gouges,Declarationof the Rights of Woman. In eds. Darline Gay Levy, Harriet BransonApplewhite, and Mary DurhamJohnson,Womenin Revolutionary Paris 1789-1795.University of Illinois Press,Urbana, 1979, p. 92. 2. Petition des femmesdu Tiers-Etatau Roi Oanuary1789), quotedin ElizabethRacz, The Women'sRights Movementin the FrenchRevolution. In ed. Ann Forfreedom. Womenout ofHistory, a Herstory Anthology.Ann Forfreedom,Los Angeles, 1972, p. 143. 3. The Womenof Paris Respondto the Delaying Tacticsof the National Convention, February25 1793. In eds. Darline Gay Levy et al., Womenin RevolutionaryParis, 1789-1795,p. 132. 4. Olympe de Gouges,Declarationof the Rights of Woman in ibid, p. 93. 5. Ibid. 6. Ibid. 7. Ibid. 8. CitoyenneLacombe'sReport to the Society of RevolutionaryRepublicanWomen ConcerningWhat Took Place,September16 at theJacobinSociety, in ibid, p. 190. 9. The Women of the PeopleRevolt Against the JacobinRegime, in ibid, p. 268. 10. Ibid.

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CHAPTER 4 A NEW MORAL WORLD: EARLY RADICALS, COOPERATORS, AND SOCIALISTS

1. FemaleReformersof Blackburn,quotedin Ruth andEdmundFrow, Political Women, 1800--1850.Pluto Press,London, 1989, p. 22.

2. William Thompson,AppealofOne-Halfthe Human Race, Womenagainstthe Pretentions ofthe Other Ha/j, Men to Retain Them in Civil and DomesticSlavery. London, 1825, p. 165. 3. Ibid, p. 189.

4. FrancesWright, ExplanatoryNotesRespectingthe Natureand Objectsof the Institution of Nashoba, quoted in Raymond Lee Muncy, Sex and Marriage in Utopian Communities.Penguin, Baltimore, 1974, p. 201. 5. A Pagefor the Ladies, Pioneer, 5 April 1834, quoted in Ruth and Edmund Frow, Political Women, 1800--1850,p. 158. 6. Straw Bonnet Makers Organize, Pioneer, 24 May 1834, quoted in ibid, p. 178. 7. Women'sPage, Pioneer, 26 April 1834, quotedin ibid, p. 169. 8. Ibid, p. 168. 9. Ibid, p. 169.

CHAPTER 5 THE ABOLITION OF SLAVERY AND WOMEN'S EMANCIPATION

1. Maria Stewart,quotedinJaneRendall, Origins ofModern Feminism,Womenin Britain, France and the United States, 1780--1860.Macmillan, London, 1985, p. 248.

2. Angelina Grimke, quoted in ibid, p. 251.

3. ElizabethCady Stantonand Lucretia Mott, quotedin GerdaLerner, The Womanin American History. Addison Wesley, Menco Park, California, 1971, pp. 82-83.

4. "An Operative" Voice of Industry, January22 1847, quoted in Philip S. Foner, Womenand the AmericanLabour Movement,From the First Trade Unions to the Present.

The Free Press,Macmillan, New York, 1974, p. 33. 5. "An Operative," quoted in ibid, pp. 33-34. 6. SojournerTruth, quotedin GerdaLerner, The Womanin AmericanHistory, pp. 6768.

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NOTES

7. Quotedin PaulaGiddings, When and Where I Enter, The Impact of Black Womenon Race and Sex in America. BantamBooks, New York, 1984, p. 54.

8. Ibid. 9. Ibid. 10. Ed. Jean FaganYellin, Harriet A. Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, 1861. Harvard University Press,Cambridge,Massachusetts,1987, p. xix. 11. SojournerTruth, quoted in PaulaGiddings, When and Where I Enter, p. 65. 12. CharlesReymond, quotedin ibid, fn. p. 68. 13. Lottie Rollins, quoted in ibid, p. 71. 14. Quotedin ibid, p. 69.

CHAPTER 6 CLASS AND COMMUNITY: WOMEN AND THE CHARTIST MOVEMENT 1. Female Public Meeting 1838. In eds. Ruth and Edmund Frow, Political Women, 1800-1850.Pluto Press,London, 1989, p. 191.

2. Ibid, p. 192. 3. Ibid. 4. Address of the Female Political Union of Newcastle-upon-Tyneto their Fellow Countrywomen,The Northern Star, 2 February1839. In ed. Dorothy Thompson, The Early Chartists. Macmillan, London, 1971, p. 128. 5. Ibid, p. 129. 6. Ibid, p. 128. 7. The Northern Star, 2 February1839, quotedin Dorothy Thompson, The Chartists.

Temple Smith, London, 1984, p. 126. 8. The Northern Star, 13 March 1841, quoted in ibid, p. 146.

9. Ibid. 10. Ibid. 11. Women'sRights Association,19 December1851. In eds. Ruth and EdmundFrow, Political Women, 1800-1850,p. 201.

12. Ibid. 13. Ibid. 14. Dorothy Thompson, Women and Nineteenth-CenturyRadical Politics: A Lost Dimension.In ed.Juliet Mitchell and Ann Oakley, The Rightsand WrongsofWomen. Penguin, London, 1976, p. 136.

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15. Ibid. 16. Ibid. 17. Ibid. 18. Ibid.

CHAPTER 7 WOMEN IN REVOLUTION: NINETEENTH-CENTURY FRANCE 1. Laura S. Strumingher,Womenand the Making ofthe Working Class: Lyon 1830-1870. Eden PressWomen'sPublications,St. Alban's, Vermont, 1979, p. 38. 2. La Politique des Femmes,SAugust 1848, in Maria Mies, Utopian Socialism and

Women'sEmancipation.In ed. Maria Mies and KumariJayawardena,Feminism in Europe, Liberal and Socialist Strategies, 1789-1919.Institute of Social Studies, The

Hague, Netherlands,1981, p. 76. 3. Ibid, p. 77. 4. JeanneDeroin, quoted in Evelyne Sullerot, JournauxFeminin et Lutte Ouviere, 1848-1849. In ed. JacquesGodechot, La Presse Ouvriere. PressesUniversitaries, Paris, 1968, p. 97. 5. JeanneDeroin and Pauline Roland, quoted in June Hannam, Isabella Ford. Basil Blackwell, Oxford, 1989, p. 121. 6. Karl Marx, quoted in Philip S. Foner, Women and the American Labor Movement, From the First Trade Unions to the Present. The Free Press,Macmillan, New York, 1979, p. 62. 7. Andre Leo, quoted in Lawrence Klejman and Florence Rochefort, L'Egalite En Marche, Le Feminismesous la Troisieme Republique. Pressesde la Foundation des SciencesPolitiques, des Femmes,Antoinette Fouque,Paris, 1989, p. 313.

CHAPTER 8 EQUALITY AND INDIVIDUALISM: HARRIET TAYLOR AND JOHN STUART MILL 1. Harriet Taylor andJohnStuartMill, 1851, quotedin Dorothy Thompson,Women, Work and Politics in Nineteenth-CenturyEngland, The Problemof Authority. In JaneRendall, Equal or Different, Women'sPolitics 1800-1914.Basil Blackwell, Oxford, 1987, p. 74.

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NOTES

2. John Stuart Mill, The Subjectionof Women, 1869. Virago, London, 1983, p. 38. 3. John Stuart Mill, The Globe, April 18 1832, quotedin RichardPankhurst,The Saint

Simonians,Mill and Carlyle, A Preface to Modern Thought, Lalibela Books. Sidgwick Jackson,London, no date, p. 74. 4. Ibid. 5. Anna Jameson,Sisters of Charity and the Communionof Labour, London 1859, quoted in JaneRendall, The Origins of Modern Feminism, Women in Britain, France

and the United States1780-1860.Macmillan, London, 1985, p. 316. 6. Milicent Garrett Fawcett, What I Remember.T. FisherUnwin, London, 1924, p. 64. 7. Mary Hume-Rothery,Letter to Gladstone,quotedin Judith R. Walkowitz, Prostitu-

tion and Victorian Society, Women,Class, and the State. CambridgeUniversity Press, Cambridge,1980, p. 130. 8. LucindaChandler,Motherhood.Woodhulland Claflin'S Weekly,May 131871,quoted in William Leach, True Loveand Perftct Union, The FeministReformofSexand Society. Routledgeand Kegan Paul, London, 1981, p. 81. 9. Matilda Joslyn Gage, National Woman'sSuffrageSociety,July 4 1874, in ibid. 10. Harriet Taylor, Enfranchisementof Women, quoted in Anne Phillips, Divided

Loyalties, Dilemmasof Sexand Class. Virago, London, 1987, p. 77. 11. Lydia Becker, 1877, quoted in Philippa Levine, Victorian Feminism, 1850-1900. Hutchinson, London, 1987, p. 74.

CHAPTER 9 SENSUOUS SPIRITS: VICTORIA WOODHULL AND TENNESSEE CLAFLIN 1. EmanieSachs,The Terrible Siren, Victoria Woodhull 1838-1927.Harperand Brothers, New York, 1928, p. 60. 2. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, quoted in ibid, p. 79. 3. Friedrich Albert Sorge,quotedin David Herreshoft,The Origins ofAmericanMarxism,

From the Transcendentaliststo De Leon. Monad Pressdistributedby PathfinderPress, New York, 1967, p. 82. 4. Ibid. 5. Ibid, p. 93. 6. Victoria Woodhull, quoted in Arlene Kisner, The Lives and Writings of Notorious

Victoria Woodhull and Her Sister TennesseeClaflin. Times ChangePress,Washington, 1972, p. 28. 7. Ibid.

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8. ElizabethCady Stanton,quotedin Linda Gordon, Woman'sBody Woman'sRight, A Social History ofBirth Control in America. Grossman,Viking Press,New York, 1976, p. 109. 9. Victoria Woodhull quotedin EmanieSachs,The Terrible Siren, Victoria Woodhull 1838-1927,p. 74.

CHAPTER 10 TRANSFORMING DOMESTIC LIFE: COOPERATIVES AND THE STATE 1. StephenPearl Andrews, quotedin DoloresHayden, The Grand DomesticRevolution, The MIT Press,CambridgeMassachusetts,1981, p. 102. 2. Edward Bellamy, Looking Backward, quoted in ibid, p. 135.

CHAPTER 11 MORAL UPLIFT, SOCIAL PURITY, AND TEMPERANCE 1. Anna Haslam,quotedin RosemaryCullen Owens,SmashingTimes,A History ofthe Irish Women'sSuffrageMovement,1889-1922.Attic Press,Dublin, 1984, p. 27. 2. Mari)o Buhle, Women and American Socialism, 1870--1920. University of Illinois Press,Urbana, 1983, p. 64. 3. Ibid, p. 65. 4. Ibid. 5. Nellie Letitia Mooney McClung, quoted in Alison Prentice, Paula Bourne, Gail Cuthbert Brandt, Beth Light, Wendy Mitchinson, and Naomi Black, Canadian Women, A History. Harcourt Brace, Toronto, 1988, p. 198.

6. FrancesWillard, quoted in Dorothy Sterling, Black Foremothers, Three Lives. The Feminist Press,New York, 1988, p. 91. 7. Ibid. 8. Ibid. 9. Ibid. 10. PaulaGiddings, Whenand Where I Enter, The Impact ofBlack Womenon Raceand Sex in America. Bantam Books, Toronto, 1985, p. 100.

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CHAPTER 12 NATIONALIST MOVEMENTS AND WOMEN'S PLACE 1. Deniz Kandiyoti, End of Empire: Islam, Nationalism and Women in Turkey. In ed. Deniz Kandiyoti, Women, Islam and the State. Macmillan, London, 1991. 2. Qasim Amin, quotedin Fatima Mernissi, Beyondthe Veil, Male-FemaleDynamicsin Muslim Society. Al Saqi Books, London, 1985, p. 14. 3. RadenAdjeng Kartini, quotedin KumariJayawardena, Feminismand Nationalismin

the Third World. Zed Books, London, 1986, p. 143. 4. Bolivar, quotedin Bell GaleChevignyand Gari Laguardia,Reinventingthe Americas,

ComparativeStudiesof Literature of the United Statesand SpanishAmerica. Cambridge University Press,Cambridge,1986, p. 140. 5. Ibid, p. 141. 6. Michael Davitt, quotedin MargaretWard, UnmanageableRevolutionaries,Womenand

Irish Nationalism. Pluto Press,London, 1983, p. 13. 7. The Times, ibid, p. 22. 8. Michael Davitt, quoted in ibid, p. 33. 9. Ibid. 10. Tim Harrington, quoted in ibid, p. 44. 11. Ibid, p. 49. 12. Honor Ford Smith, Introduction. In ed. Sistrenwith Honor Ford Smith, Lionheart Gal. Women'sPress,London, 1986, p. xxiv. 13. Ibid, p. xxxi.

CHAPTER 13 SOCIAL REFORM: PROTECTION BY THE STATE 1. Emma Paterson,quoted in Sheila Lewenhak, Womenand Trade Unions. An Outline

History of Womenin the British Trade Union Movement.ErnestBenn, London, 1977, p.69. 2. Mrs. Mason, quoted in BarbaraDrake, Women in Trade Unions. Virago, London, 1984 (first edition, 1920), p. 16. 3. Henry Broadhurst,quoted in ibid. 4. ClementinaBlack, London County Council Special Committeeon Contracts, Inquiry into the Condition of the Clothing Trade, 12 December1890. In ed. Rodney

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Mace, Taking Stock, A DocumentaryHistory of the Greater London Council's Supplies Department,CelebratingSeventyFive Yearsof Workingfor London. The GreaterLondon Council, London, 1984, pp. 27-29. 5. Ada Nield Chew, Life in a Crewe Factory, Crewe Chronicle, 14 July 1894. In ed. Doris Chew, Ada Nield Chew, The Lift and Writings of a Working Woman. Virago, London, 1982, p. 104.

CHAPTER 14 WELFARE AND SOCIAL ACTION 1. JohnRuskin to OctaviaHill, August 301870.In ed. Emily S. Maurice, Octavia Hill, Early Ideals. GeorgeAllen and Unwin, London, 1928, p. 180.

2. Quoted in Meredith Tax, The Rising of the Women. Monthly Review Press, New York, 1980, p. 60. 3. JaneAddams,quotedin DoloresHayden, The Grand DomesticRevolution.MIT Press, Cambridge,Massachusetts,1981, p. 167. 4. PaulaGiddings, When and Where I Enter, The Impact ofBlack Womenon Raceand Sex in America. BantamBooks, Toronto, 1985, p. 102.

CHAPTER 15 SOCIALISM, WOMEN, AND THE NEW LIFE 1. Tom Maguire, quoted in eds. A. Mattison and E. Carpenter, Tom Maguire: A Remembrance.ManchesterLabour PressSociety, Manchester,1895, pp. v-vi.

2. Kathleen St John Conway, quoted in Laurence Thompson, The Enthusiasts, A Biography ofJohn and Bruce Glasier. Gollancz, London, 1971, p. 85. 3. IsabellaFord, quotedinJuneHannam,Isabella Ford. Basil Blackwell, Oxford, 1989, p.54. 4. Edith Lees, quotedin SheilaRowbotham,EdwardCarpenter,Prophetof the New Life. In Sheila Rowbothamand Jeffrey Weeks, Socialism and the New Lift. Pluto, London, 1977, p. 86. 5. HelenaBorn, The Last StandAgainstDemocracyin Sex,Helen Tufts, Whitman'sIdeal Democracy.Boston, Massachusetts,1902, p. 74. 6. Kathleen St John Conway, quoted in Sheila Rowbotham, Edward Carpenter, Prophetof the New Life. In SheilaRowbothamandJeffrey Weeks, Socialismand the New Lift, p. 68.

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7. HannahMitchell, The Hard Way Up. Faber, London, 1968, p. 88. 8. Ibid. 9. Isabella Ford, quotedin June Hannam, Isabella Ford, p. 51. 10. Averil SandersonFurniss, quotedin Christine Collette, For Labour andfor Women,

The Women'sLabour League, 1906-18. ManchesterUniversity Press, Manchester, 1989, p. 162. 11. Enid Stacey, quoted in Jill Liddington and Jill Norris, One Hand Tied Behind Us, The Rise of the Women'sSuffrageMovement.Virago, London, 1978, p. 130. 12. Ibid. 13. Ibid. 14. Ibid. 15. Margaret McMillan, quoted in ibid, p. 131.

CHAPTER 16 MARXISTS AND THE WOMAN QUESTION 1. Annie Sleet,Justice, 2 November1895. (I am grateful to Beverley Thiele for this reference.) 2. Ibid. 3. Ibid. 4. E. Marx and E. Aveling, 'The Woman Question', A Socialist Point of view. WestminsterReview,1885, volume VI, no. 25, p. 211. 5. Frederick Engels, ed. Eleanor Burke Leacock, The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State, Prefaceto the first edition. Lawrenceand Wishart, London, 1972, p. 71. 6. Ibid. 7. Jenny to Laura, 22 April 1881, Letter 42. The Daughters of Karl Marx, Family Correspondence1866-1898.Andre Deutsch, London, 1982, p. 131. 8. Jenny to Laura, end March 1882, Letter 51, in ibid, p. 152. 9. JulesGuesde,quotedin PatriciaHilden, Working Womenand SocialistPolitics in France

1880-1914.A Regional Study. Oxford University Press,Oxford, 1986, p. 177. 10. Ibid, p. 185. 11. Clara Zetkin, quotedin Richard]. Evans, Comradesand Sisters,Feminism, Socialism

and Pacifism in Europe 1870-1945.WheatsheafBooks, Brighton, 1987, p. 21. 12. Ibid, p. 22. 13. Hal Draper and Anne G. Lipow, Marxist Women versusBourgeoisFeminism. In

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eds. Ralph Miliband andJohn Saville, The Socialist Register.Merlin, London, 1976, p.217. 14. Ibid. 15. Ibid, p. 218. 16. RichardJ. Evans, Comradesand Sisters, Feminism, Socialism and Pacifism in Europe 1870-1945,p. 27.

17. Hopeful, Justice, 23 September1893. (I am grateful to Beverley Thiele for this reference.) 18. EduardBernstein,quotedin John Lauristenand David Thorstad, The Early HomosexualRightsMovement,1865-1935.Times ChangePress,Washington,NewJersey,

1974, p. 58.

CHAPTER 17 ANARCHISM AND REBEL WOMEN 1. Emma Goldman, quoted in June Sochen, Movers and Shakers, American Women Thinkers and Activists 1900-1970. Quadrangle,The New York Times Book Co., New York, 1973, p. 63. 2. Louise Michel, quotedin Edith Thomas,Louise Michel. Black Rose Books, Montreal, 1981, p. 294. 3. Vera Figner, in eds. BarbaraAlpern Engel and Clifford N. Rosenthal,Five Sisters: Women Against the Tsar. Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1975, p. 35. 4. Emma Goldman, quoted in June Sochen, Movers and Shakers, American Women Thinkers and Activists 1900-1970,p. 62.

5. Emma Goldman, Living My Life. Pluto, London, 1987, p. 253. 6. Lou Andreas-Salome,quoted in Walter Sorell, Three Women, Alma MahlerWeljel, Gertrude Stein, Lou Andreas-Salome, Lives ofSexand Genius. OswaldWolff, London, 1975, p. 166. 7. Ibid. 8. Ibid. 9. Ibid. 10. MadeleinePelletier, quotedin Felicia Gordon, The Integral Feminist, MadeleinePelletier, 1874-1939.Polity Press,Oxford, 1990, p. 91. 11. Ibid. 12. FrancesSwiney, quoted in SheilaJeffreys, The Spinsterand Her Enemies,Feminism and Sexuality 1880-1930.PandoraPress,London, 1985, p. 36. 13. Ibid, p. 38.

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NOTES

14. MadeleinePelletier, quotedin Felicia Gordon, The Integral Feminist, MadeleinePelletier, 1874-1939,p. 134.

15. Margaret Anderson, quoted in Richard Drinnon, Rebel in Paradise: A Biography oj Emma Goldman. Chicago University Press,Chicago, 1961, p. 56. 16. Linda Gordon, Woman'sBody, Woman'sRight, A Social History oj Birth Control in America. Grossman,New York, 1976, p. 223.

17. ElizabethGurley Flynn, quotedin RosalynFraadBaxandall, Wordson Fire. The Life and Writings oJElizabethGurley Flynn. Rutgers'University Press,New Brunswick, 1987, p. 103. 18. Ibid, p. 137. 19. Lily Gair Wilkinson, Women'sFreedom. FreedomPress,London, c1914, p. 15. 20. Ibid. 21. Ibid. 22. Helene Brion, La Voie Feministe. Collection Memoire des Femmes,dirigee par Huguette Bouchardeau.Editions Synos, Paris, 1978, p. 63. 23. Philip S. Foner, Womenand the AmericanLabor Movement.From the First Trade Unions to the Present. The Free Press,Macmillan, New York, 1979, p. 197.

CHAPTER 18 THE SUFFRAGE: PATRIOTS AND INTERNATIONALISTS 1. RebeccaWest, A Reedof Steel. In ed. JaneMarcus, The Young Rebecca,Writings oj Rebecca West, 1911-1917. Macmillan in associationwith Virago Press, London, 1982, p. 255. 2. RebeccaWest, The Labour Party's Treachery. The Clarion, 25 October 1912, in ibid, p. 109. 3. ChristabelPankhurst,quotedin SheilaJeffreys, The Spinsterand Her Enemies,Feminism and Sexuality 1886-1930.Pandora,London, 1985, p. 47. 4. ChristabelPankhurstquotedin ibid., p. 46. 5. Ibid. 6. Ibid. 7. RebeccaWest, The Nature of Woman. The Clarion, 7 March 1913, in ed. Jane Marcus, The Young Rebecca,p. 162. 8. RebeccaWest, Time and Tide, 1920, in ibid, p. 5. 9. Ibid, p. 6.

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10. Seeed. Tierl Thompson,Dear Girl, The Diaries and Letters of Two Working Women 1897-1917.The Women'sPress,London, 1987. 11. Kate RichardsO'Hare, quotedin JuneSochen,Moversand Shakers,American Women Thinkers and Activists, 1900-1970. Quadrangle/TheNew York Times Book Co., New York, 1973, p. 55.

12. Ibid. 13. CharlottePerkinsGilman, quoted in Jill Liddington, The Long Road to Greenham, Feminismand Anti-Militarism in Britain since 1820. Virago, London, 1989, p. 67.

14. RebeccaWest, So Simple, The Freewoman,12 October 1912, in ed. JaneMarcus, The Young Rebecca,pp. 70-74. 15. Ichikawa Fusae, quoted in Kumari Jayawardena,Feminism and Nationalism in the Third World. Zed Books, London, 1987, p. 249.

CHAPTER 19 WOMEN AND REVOLUTION IN RUSSIA

1. Moscow Union for Women's Equality, quoted in Richard Stites, The Women's Liberation Movement in Russia, Feminism, Nihilism and Bolshevism, 1860-1930. PrincetonUniversity Press,Princeton, 1978, p. 207. 2. Vera Zasulich,in eds. BarbaraAlpern Engel and Clifford N. Rosenthal,Five Sisters: WomenAgainst the Tsar. Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1975, p. 69. 3. NadezhdaStasova,quoted in Richard Stites, The Women'sLiberation Movementin Russia, p. 67.

4. ElisavetaGarshina,quoted in Cathy Porter, Fathers and Daughters, Russian Women in Revolution.Virago in associationwith QuartetBooks, London, 1976, pp. 88-89. 5. Olga Lyubatovich, quotedin eds. BarbaraAlpern Engeland Clifford N. Rosenthal, Five Sisters, WomenAgainst the Tsar, p. 195. 6. InessaArmand, quotedin RichardStites, The Women'sLiberation Movementin Russia, p.255. 7. Ibid. 8. Alexandra Kollontai, The Social Basis of the Woman Question. In ed. Alix Holt, SelectedWritings of Alexandra Kollontai. Allison and Busby, London, 1977, p. 69.

9. Quotedin TemmaKaplan, Woman and CommunalStrikes in the Crisis of 19171922. In eds. RenateBridenthal, ClaudiaKoonz, and SusanStuard,BecomingVisible, Womenin EuropeanHistory. Houghton Miffiin, Boston 1987, p. 440.

to. Ibid.

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11. Angelica Balabanova,quotedin Richard Stites, The Women'sLiberation Movementin Russia, p. 324.

12. Ibid. 13. Alexandra Kollontai, quotedin Ibid, p. 332.

14. Alexandra Kollontai, quoted in Ibid, p. 249. 15. Cathy Porter, Alexandra Kollontai, a Biography. Virago, London, 1980, p. 176. 16. Alexandra Kollontai, Love and the New Morality. In ed. Alix Holt, Alexandra Kollontai, Sexual Relationsand the Class Struggle, Love and the New Morality (Pamphlet). Falling Wall Press,Bristol, 1972, p. 17.

17. Lenin, Speechat First All-Russian Congressof Women Workers, November19, 1918. In Womenand Communism,Selectionsfrom the Writings ofMarx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin. Lawrenceand Wishart, London, 1950, p. 43. 18. Ilin, quoted in Richard Stites, The Women's Liberation Movement in Russia, p. 409. 19. Quoted in ElizabethWaters, In The Shadowof the Comintern. The Communist Women'sMovement, 1920-43. In eds Sonia Kruks, RaynaRapp, and Marilyn B. Young, Promissory Notes, Women in the Transition to Socialism. Monthly Review Press,New York, 1989, p. 32.

CHAPTER 20 INDIAN WOMEN AND SELF-RULE

1. See Margaret Ward, UnmanageableRevolutionaries, Women and Irish Nationalism. Pluto Press, London, 1983; Sheila Rowbotham, Women Resistanceand Revolution. Allen Lane, ThePenguinPress,1972;RhodaReddock,Elma Fran